Identity Documents as a Determinant or Inclusion or Exclusion in Latin America

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Identity documents, beginning with birth certificates, are essential to exercising full citizenship in modern states. Many state services and benefits cannot be accessed in the absence of identity documents. Identity documentation is also key to navigating outside of one's borders. For example, a birth certificate is usually necessary to obtain a passport. Controlling international trafficking and assisting people who have been displaced through internal or cross border conflict are best achieved when documentation is widespread. This panel examines various aspects of the documentation issue in Latin America: both the inclusion and exclusion aspects of the phenomenon. On the one side, a recent trend involves states that have promoted documentation to include citizens in expanding welfare state provisions (Brazil as a prominent case in point). On the other side, states that seek to track and control their citizens have also engaged in efforts to widen documentation (e.g. Peru in the 1990s and Guatemala more recently). The denial of documents as basic as birth certification is also being used to deprive long-term residents of rights in the only country they have ever known (e.g. seen in the treatment by the Dominican Republic of Haitians who have longed lived in the D.R.).

Sub Track

• International Relations

Chair

• Robert Brill, Cornell Univeristy

Individual Presentations

• Overview of Identity Documentation as a Basis of Inclusion or Exclusion: Recent Trends in Latin America - Wendy A Hunter, University of Texas/Austin

• Birth Registration and State Modernization: The Case of Brazil - Robert Brill, Cornell Univeristy

• Register That? The Politics of Document Provision (and Obstruction) in the Dominico-Haitian Case - Danilo Antonio A Contreras Martinez, University of Texas at Austin

• Informality and Social Rights: Balancing WOrk and Care Among Low Income Families in São PAulo - Regina C Madalozzo, Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa

Discussant

• Gustavo A Flores-Macias, Cornell University